Can a creative ad build a brand?

Well, I suppose this depends on how you define “building a brand.”

Creating a brand is creating the image of the product in the marketplace. Brand building, according to the Business Directory is: “Enhancing a brand's equity directly through advertising campaigns and indirectly through promotions such as cause championing or event sponsorship.”
I don’t entirely agree with this definition as equity is also built by great service and a good product. One thing is clear - branding building enhances the psychological aspect of the brand.
Creative ads have the ability to emotionally seduce the viewer into buying the product, according to Mathew Bull. Well, that is if you want or need the product. The Cremora ad, flighted 25 to 30 years ago, was a creative ad. Consumers still remember, “…it’s not inside it’s onnnnnn top.”

Brand building is the responsibility of the operations people as well as the marketing people. No matter how good this Cremora ad was, if the product was unacceptable and was never in stores due to distribution problems, POW!! There goes the brand! The brand experience also helps to enhance a brand image.

Consumers today are bombarded by millions of messages and as a result, their ad needs to stand out in the crowd. Creative advertising does this. The creative use of media is also important to break away from the clutter.

Brands that have an emotional appeal also defy the downturn in the economy, are more robust and usually sell better than their competitors. But consumers do not make their decisions rationally, even though we all believe we do. There is no real difference between Coke or Pepsi, Mercedes or BMW, Colgate or Aquafresh but consumers choose one over the other. Neuroscience has shown that our brains recognize these brands more instinctively, especially if there is an emotional attachment.

Without proper research, to develop a good strategy and a good brief, John Hunt states that “a great ad always espouses a human truth that resonates with people.” That is why ads such as ‘the Zimbabwean’, have won so many awards. The emotion and truth resonates with the judges. I am pre-empting here but I am sure that an ad for the Haiti relief effort will do really well at the Cannes Ad Awards next year.

Good creative ads that can resonate with the consumer will often build a brand. All the other elements also need to be there such as distribution, product and a price that the consumer perceives to be reasonable.

Brands lose millions in bungled ad broadcasts

Research released by Ornico, a company I am a shareholder in, shows TV error rates for broadcast commercials are climbing and that advertisers are losing millions from mistakes made by local stations.

The release shows that advertisers could be losing millions from commercials that had not been broadcast or had been broadcast erroneously.

Our survey shows that the percentage of reported errors in bungled advertising broadcasts reached a new high of 15% in 2008, up 7% from 2007 when the error rate was set at 8%. This means that television stations almost doubled their error rate year on year, and are making more and more mistakes on the non-flighting or erroneous broadcast of television adverts. This represents a huge loss of investment to advertisers, and we expect this trend to continue in 2009. Ornico predicts that error rates will increase sharply because of the huge challenges the SABC is facing and due to the high error ratings we continually see coming from through from DStv.

Between April 2008 and March 2009 the SABC had to compensate companies to the tune R71 million because of mistakes that had been made by the public broadcaster. Compensation was made because of broadcast commercials that had not been run, had been run at the wrong time or had been placed in the wrong television programmes.

Telmar shows that R13,994,782,500.00 worth of television commercials were placed on local television stations for the period from January to July 2009. The Spotcheque™ verification service that Ornico runs for clients revealed an average error rate of 10.43% for commercials aired across all televisions stations for the period from January to July 2009. When you extrapolate that error percentage to the national advertising revenue picture it means that potentially broadcast advertising worth R1,459,655,814.00 could have not been aired or aired incorrectly. The problem we have in this country is that most media placement agencies don’t run an independent verification service, or they use other post campaign tools that have been proved to be faulty in the past because the source of data is not accurate.

Our data showed that the worst month for mistakes was January 2009 when a 13% mistake margin was recorded for the client advertising tracked by Ornico’s Spotcheque™ verification service. On one client where we tracked DStv the error margin reached 84% because so many mistakes were made on the campaign.

The data released by Ornico represents a sample of some 9,213 adverts flighted on SABC 1, 2, 3 as well as eTV and MNet. The DStv channels monitored by Ornico’s Spotcheque™ verification service include BBC Lifestyle, BBC Entertainment, Kyknet, SuperSport, National Geographic and the MNet Series channel.

Will Windows 7 rivive Microsofts brand?

This was a question asked by brandchannel. see http://www.brandchannel.com/forum.asp?bd_id=113.

My response is as follows:-

I find it amazing that Microsoft can release a version of software that often does not work properly. Can you imaging if my clients had to sell defective products or services. Their brand would not exist.

Competition will really change the status quo. In todays interconnected world the brand custodian is the consumer. How many consumers "love" Microsoft. Not too many. I am not sure that Windows 7 will help revive the brand. There are many more touch points that MS need to work on before the brand is improved.

Recognition of the brand does not mean that you love the brand. Everyone knows "Mugabe" but no one likes him. Its the same with MS

Brand Legitimacy- A concept beyond CSI

Article written by Greg Pfuhl and published with his permission

It is fair to say that any form of CSI initiative that assists those less fortunate at the expense of those very fortunate is applaudable. Regardless if it is harnessed as a means of creating a competitive advantage. However, in contemporary society there is the presence of the ‘Informed Consumer’; the consumer that deciphers every advertising or marketing practice before making that pivotal purchase decision. He/She has undertaken a natural learning process over time and is viably ‘streetwise’ when it comes to brands, almost impossible to manipulate. This consumer is infinitely critical and enjoys denouncing brand flaws. In line with this, the concept of CSI needs to be revisited by many companies. CSI needs to be infused with a sense of perceptive legitimacy. The outcome ideally being a concept called ‘Brand Legitimacy’; a perception of a brand that looks beyond standard CSI practices. It delves deeper into the legitimacy of the good that the organisation is truly trying to do. Ideally, it looks beyond the aesthetics of CSI and beyond those ever present charity logos or the countless pictures of employees happily digging outside a dilapidated primary school.

In an increasingly competitive corporate climate, brands have been compelled, often out of obligation more than desire, to initiate CSI initiatives. In the early days these initiatives were merely injections of excess profit. These injections housed very little thought and literally translated into financial benefit for a charity or NPO. These injections were occasionally squandered in wake of inadequate financial know-how on the receiver’s behalf. Alternatively, corruptive measures arose on the receiver’s side whereby this sudden surge of wealth offered far too much temptation. The greatest failing possibly came from the ‘givers’ distancing themselves from the ‘receivers’ post donation. They did not transfer their business acumen and assist in managing these funds efficiently. This final failing houses value far greater than the initial monetary contribution. The ‘givers’ in this case naturally did receive some form of enhanced brand equity based on the perception of ‘proactive selflessness’ and willingness to give. The authenticity of this perception is debatable, especially coupled with the cliché negative perception of a corporate; aggressive money hungry empires run by Porsche-driving profiteers.

Later down the line, these organizations saw the potential to benefit from these ‘selfless’ acts and subtly build advertising campaigns around them or merely include some form of CSI branding. This, coupled with the increasing literature on the ‘Informed Consumer’ would in theory sway the consumer away from the CSI-less competitor and into the arms of the CSI-Super King. In essence, this consumer would have his emotional strings yanked on with the thought that he may be assisting that starving pre-adolescent boy in the bottom right hand corner of the advert (that boy can very much encompass ‘aesthetic CSI’). After all, by shifting to the CSI Super King he/she would indirectly alleviate himself of a personal charitable obligation, without actually doing anything beyond altering purchasing patterns. In a theory, the company would fulfil the consumers Social Investment on their behalf if they in turn purchased their product(s).

This may all sound very cynical but I feel the sudden flood of CSI infused advertising justifies the extent to which corporate felt they could create comparative advantage, not truly fore-front a worthy cause. The pursued comparative advantage was often neutralised by all the companies jumping on the proverbial CSI-band wagon, resulting in a consumer decision based once again on quality, price and value for money (as before). It is apparent that the playing fields had levelled as a result. This levelling out meant that creativity was the core to gaining stand-out in terms of CSI and thus gaining that consumer patronage, ironically this resembles the advertising industry in general.

At this point in the cycle, CSI began to lean toward much more industry relevant initiatives. A basic example being a print media company beginning its own personalised paper recycling initiative built around creating awareness to other organisations and including them in its campaigning. This phase could be labelled the birth of Brand Legitimacy or maybe rather Industry Relevant CSI. The concept of ‘industry sustainability’ arose and essentially what your industry stole from Mother Earth needed to be replaced. Naturally, the issue of poverty would not be directly assisted by this. However, the resolution lay in the organisation, primarily the larger industrial ones, pin-pointing the communities in which their factories where situated and taking direct ownership of poverty resolution. The aesthetic CSI branding of these initiatives came in the form of ‘Thanks to ... You are now entering a socially uplifted area’ in billboard format, almost as if it were written by some random passer-by that felt compelled to praise this organisation. One thing that will never die, and if it were to die that would resemble the true prevalence of Brand Legitimacy; the inclination toward self-praise and an inherent obligation to inform everyone that they are doing good. I do suppose that is the only means of possible ROI for these organisations, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if a company did not pursue any means of advertising their goodwill. That would be sincere Brand Legitimacy, a true willingness to assist those less fortunate and make a tangible difference without anticipating some form of recognition. The ideal outcome for an organisation that deferred from the desire to ‘shout it from the mountain tops’ would be immense positive PR and word-of-mouth that inflated the brands equity well beyond its competitors – the true CSI Super King. This would not immediately result in a sudden revenue increase, rather a long-term respect and approval of the brand. A wonderful idealization one could say!

One recent example that I could offer that houses elements of Brand Legitimacy would be MTN’s 2010 TV commercial. This advert is based around motivating the nation about 2010 as well as indirectly denouncing those local and international sceptics. It blatantly persuades us that ‘We are ready’ for 2010. This aspect of the advert is not directly CSI but still manages to socially invest – invest in improving the morale of a nation. Better yet, it does not try to sell us anything or punt some product benefit. Secondly, the advert utilises South African music in the form of a very appropriate Goldfish song. This naturally has positive implications for the South African music industry if this trend is going to continue. The advert is also distinctly South African in context, offering a wide demographic split and shot on a colloquially South African landscape. This can only assist in building ‘brand South Africa’. This is not a very definitive example of Brand Legitimacy but still builds on the basic concept, essentially promoting the greater good without trying to directly bloat those profit margins.

There are undoubtedly legitimate brands out there that place values and the interest of their consumer as their core concern. It is however those brands that feel torn by a governmental and societal obligation to do good that concern me. It is also the manner how they have tried to manipulate a truly noble concept and try to use it as a secondary reason to purchase. With the growth of Informed Consumers and growing platforms for debate and discussion, the illegitimate brands will eventually be seen through and the repercussions will ideally occur.

Once again, please excuse my cynicism, especially in a nation like South Africa that craves any form of social investment. There is so much more to be gained from legitimate brands however. For instance, a brand that ushers funding in the direction of communities where their factories and labour forces reside. A brand that instils long term learning programmes in these communities. A brand that assists in the efficient management of donated funding. A brand that is willing to commit in the long term and has a true desire to see this community thrive and develop business minds and morally astute citizens. And finally, a brand that does not seek reward for this goodwill beyond the mere satisfaction of knowingly improving the lives of many. If this could occur and spill over throughout South Africa, imagine what the collective outcome would be.

Razorfish, Ogilvy PR Launch Social Media Measurement tool

Social networking has always been really difficult to measure and evaluate. Without proper evaluation tools agencies and clients are skeptical about investing in a marketing project.

I believe that Ogilvy PR and Razorfish therefore decided to launch a new measurement tool in order to please their clients.

The measurement offering is based on the brand's "Network Promoter Score," which is described by Wikipedia as the following:

Companies obtain their Net Promoter Score by asking customers a single question on a 0 to 10 rating scale: "How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?". Based on their responses, customers can be categorized into one of three groups: Promoters (9-10 rating), Passives (7-8 rating), and Detractors (0-6 rating). The percentage of Detractors is then subtracted from the percentage of Promoters to obtain a Net Promoter score. A score of 75% or above is considered quite high.

Advertising Age describes Razorfish’s solution as follows:

Perhaps the closest to a social-web-based Net Promoter Score is something Razorfish plans to introduce this week: the SIM score, which stands for social influence marketing. Razorfish hopes SIM, in fact, becomes a standard as big as a Net Promoter score. It's a reflection of the total share of consumer conversations a brand has online and the degree to which consumers like or dislike the brand when they talk about it. The agency envisions marketers will track it over time and that it will correlate to business results.

They go on to describe Ogilvy PR’s solution

Ogilvy PR today will also launch a formula for calculating what it calls "conversation impact." It's meant to determine not the overall social-media health of a brand but rather the impact of a particular campaign. It's already using the tool, which takes into account reach at the top of the funnel, preference in the middle of the funnel and action at the bottom, to help evaluate a Tropicana campaign.


The Ogilvy solution does not make any sense whereas the Razorfish solution seems to be more thought out. Only time will tell which system will capture the imagination of clients.

My belief is that one independent system must prevail in order for an industry currency to be established and proper comparisons made. This can only be done if there are no self interests and the company who had developed the system is independent. Both Ogilvy PR and Razorfish will try and produce results that favor their own clients.

Michael Jackson ‘event’ reveals redefined media

Analysis of the coverage of the pop star’s death and memorial shows the changing nature of news, the effect of celebrity branding and the cloyingly close relationship between media, commerce and fame.
By Oresti Patricios, CEO, Ornico

Johannesburg, Thursday 09 July 2009 – Michael Jackson’s death and memorial has become one of the biggest media events in living history alongside the recent inauguration of inauguration of President Barack Obama, and the 1997 funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. As the saga unfolded it clearly showed the role of social media in redefining news, and the close relationship between media, commerce and celebrity.

While mainstream traditional news has long demanded the clarification of facts, social media’s first to market rule, and hunger for traffic, saw the Time Warner owned celebrity gossip site, TMZ, break news of Jackson’s death. TMZ created a viral phenomenon that saw social media users spread word of the news on Twitter and Facebook with link backs to TMZ. Traditional and online news brands quickly picked up on the story quoting and linking back to TMZ, enhancing the gossip site’s online footprint dramatically. Marketing research and media tracking company, comScore, Inc reports that TMZ’s traffic hiked 70% off the back of the news which drove 7.95 million visitors to the site in the week of Jackson’s death ending 28 June 2009.

The traffic surge made TMZ the biggest and most quoted celebrity news site over the period, trumping other celebrity sites like OMG! (owned by Yahoo); People; USMagazine.com; Entertainment Weekly; E! Online and Perez Hilton. The event confirmed that news is a commodity with speed, and being first to break big news, yielding a triumphant traffic effect. The phenomenon confirmed an earlier comScore research report that showed that Americans are increasingly getting their entertainment news online, with online video becoming an increasingly important channel for content.

This is a trend local entertainment print titles like Heat would do well to take note of, particularly with local municipalities getting involved in rolling out broadband while government invests a reported R950 million in Broadband Infraco. Together with 2010, the landing of the new sea cables and the move by mobile to make internet access more pervasive, broadband will become cheaper and more accessible. As broadband becomes pervasive, print media will have their day of reckoning and will need to re-evaluate their business models. Print media will be increasingly threatened by connected consumers who look to access breaking news through digital channels.

Two trends will emerge. The first will be the continued migration of commoditised news online, and the consolidation of news desks and brands. Print will need to reinvent itself to remain relevant. The second will be the increased tabloid nature of celebrity news as titles seek to drive up flagging print sales. Internationally OK!Weekly supported this trend by choosing to put a controversially grim photograph of Michael Jackson on its cover. The photo, the last taken of the pop icon, showed a dying Jackson being taken to hospital. Media reports state that the magazine paid some $500,000 for exclusive UK and US magazine rights to the photo. This is an obvious effort to capitalize on Jackson mania in order to boost circulation and dwindling news stand sales.

The effect of the massive media attention was immediately translated commercially. iTunes and BitTorrent downloads went skyrocketing while Jackson CDs continue to dominate the top ten in Amazon’s best seller lists. Rolling Stone Magazine reports that the King of Pop outsold four new releases and topped billboard charts to sell over 800,000 copies in the week after his death. The 19% spike in Web traffic reported on the day of Jackson’s memorial shows that voyeurism and celebrity are firmly entrenched consumer habits, and that media and social networks will continue to exploit and capitalize on this hunger to drive traffic and subsequent advertising revenue.

For media and commerce it will be a matter of ‘The King is dead. Long live the King’. As with Princess Diana whose image and icon still delivers sales on books, magazines and memorabilia, so too the King of Pop will be used to drive media, record and memorabilia sales.

The Michael Jackson media frenzy

Social networks score big numbers in what is one of the biggest media events of our time.
By Oresti Patricious, CEO, Ornico

Johannesburg, Thursday 09 July 2009 - Michael Jackson’s death and subsequent memorial concert is without doubt one of the biggest media events of our time. Television networks thronged to cover the pop star’s memorial concert, which drove colossal internet traffic with online news brands, entertainment channels and social media vying for a piece of the action.

Initial Global television audiences were estimated at over a billion viewers, which is on par with Obama’s presidential inauguration. Social media usage surged and the subject of Jackson’s death and memorial dominated the likes of Twitter and Facebook, with these networks reporting tens of thousands of tweets and status updates each minute. The fan number on Jackson’s Facebook page rocketed to over 7.4 million while the Michael Jackson sequined glove became the hottest gift item on the network. Over 800 000 gloves were exchanged between Facebook friends.

CNN reported that over 10 million people watched the memorial stream on the news brand’s website, with 5 million streams generated by Jackson mourners on Yahoo News, while FoxNews.com generated some 3.4 million streams. Thanks to a partnership with Twitter MSNBC.com reeled in 7 million streams.

Google reported a meteoric rise in searches related to Michael Jackson following news of his death, which also realized on the largest mobile search spike Goggles has experienced to date. The official Google blog reported that the spike in searches related to Michael Jackson was so big that the Google News site initially mistook the surge for an automated attack.

Traditional media also got in on the act with Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems reporting that Michael Jackson’s music experienced a 1.735 percent hike following the news of his death as many stations dedicated play lists to the legend.

The effect of the massive media attention was immediately translated commercially. iTunes and BitTorrent downloads went skyrocketing while Jackson CDs dominate the top ten in Amazon’s best seller lists.

Back home Jackson dominated mainstream television and radio channels with 702, 5fm and eTV leading coverage on the star life, death and memorial. Some 290 local print news items in the major dailies and weekend newspapers were dedicated to Michael Jackson’s death and memorial, translating into an advertising value expenditure of over R1.1 million (B&W rate). Broadcast media dedicated coverage to the value of R10 700 000.